I was in Toronto to run the Canadian national 10km road race champs this week end. During the race I felt fine, not great but fine. I ran the same way, not great but fine. I haven’t even looked up my actual place in the race, who cares, I ran 31:27 and that is all the info I need. It’s a nice feeling to run a race in a time I will probably need to run 3 x10 km’s in a long marathon workout still feeling comfortable because there is still 12km to go come race day.
So that is fine, the race is done and so is the first of 3 blocks in this marathon prep. time to move on. In this next block I am going to be running some longer marathon paced runs, and some long track interval workouts along with 4 weeks of big mileage and at the end hopefully I will be able to handle paces at close to or slightly better than marathon pace and I will be feeling better than I am now heading into the final 4 weeks before the marathon.
Back to Sunday, I slept in a bit, 9:30am, then I took the morning easy before deciding what I was going to run that afternoon. I was supposed to run anywhere from 15-20 miles and at an easy pace. The only thing I decided the day before was to wait till sunday morning before making up my mind as to how long I would go. Sunday came and I was up for 20 miles from my place out and back along my favorite long run route out past Fort Langley towards the outskirts of Abbotsford and back.
The other important part of this run was to test out a sweat/fluid/carbohydrate intake test to see if I could take in the max amount of carbs that a person is supposed to be able to consume each hour (40 grams) and stay inside the acceptable area of weight ratio loss. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get too into this but after seeing that how well Reid and Gillas ran in the marathon, and seeing Dylan running well in our workouts and knowing he also uses this formula I decided I wanted to give my body the opportunity the get through workouts with the right amount of fuel and to have the best possible opportunity to recover after and in between runs and see if my workouts improve.
This comes at a great time as I have been given an opportunity from Gatorade to try out their new to Canada G2 prime, perform and replenish drink system. I started my run by taking a G2 prime drink and I also set up two full water bottles filled with G2 Gatorade at full strength, that I was planning to take every three miles and emptying one full bottle each hour, so approximately one bottle on the first 10 miles out and the second full bottle on the final 10 miles back to the house. Karen followed me on the bike so I could do this.
I was planning to run comfortable but a bit quicker than I have been, 6:00 mile average by half way or at least by 15 miles was the initial goal, but if my body was more beat up from the day before than I thought then I would just run easy. When I have a biker with me I find that I tend to run a bit quicker and during this run that was the case again. It was a cool afternoon at the start of this run, cooler than it has been for a while, but the sun was out so when I was out of the shade it was still pretty warm.
At 3 miles I took my first drink and tried to take in a good third of the bottle, it took a bit of time but I had no problem doing it and my stomach was fine, I also took a glance at my watch and I knew it was going to be a good run, my watch said 6:06 mile pace at this point. I knew where 6 miles was so I decided not to look at my watch at the next drink area and I didn’t. The path I was running was busy with people but with Karen biking up ahead she would clear out the path and I had no problem keeping pace and staying comfortable doing it. When I hit 9 miles I finished off the rest of my first bottle taking in 24 fluid ounces and 37 grams of carbs and glanced at my watch, pace was 5:55 per mile and I was still running comfortable. I hit the turn around in 59:23 and headed back home. At 12 miles I took in some of my second bottle and concentrated on keeping pace and staying relaxed. This out and back is flat to start with a few rollers at the start, then I hit the fort to fort trail and it has a few good ups and downs, then when I get back on the road it is pretty much flat with one more gradual climb before the turn around and then I do it all again. The Sacramento marathon is supposed to be rolling in the first half and dead flat at the end so I think this route I run from my place will get me ready for anything I might face in California.
At 15 miles I took in more of my gatorade and took a look at my watch, it said 5:49 per mile which was good becasue it felt easy and relaxed and I was still able to take in fluids with no stomach problem. With one more drink point at 18 miles I finished up the rest of bottle two giving my a total of 48 ounces or 1.36 liters, almost a liter and a half! With two miles to go I ran it in easy to the finish and clocked 57:54 for the second 10 miles giving me a 1:57:18 for the 20 miler.
My legs felt good at the end of the run and I did some drills before heading in for an ice bath to aid in recovery a bit more. I put my data for fluid intake through an excel table and came out with a 3.07 % body weight loss, within the 4% limit so the experiment went well and I will continue to test it on other long workouts and long runs to get my body used to taking in that much fluid.
I have two more easy days before our next workout so till then.
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